On the nature of International Women's Day
Photo courtesy of Brianna Tucker/Unsplash
I am not a woman, funnily enough. Although, sometimes when I’m in a room with a group of women – this can happen dangerously often, as women and their friends tend to hang out in the same space – I will be grouped in with the third person referential “ladies.” Normally, if I’m feeling like I want to mess with somebody, I’ll poke fun, ask why I, clearly a man of the tote bag-wearing variety, would be considered a lady. Afterward, their recoil usually involves quickly attaching “and Daniel” onto the end of “ladies,” nervously insinuating that I am completely divorced from my compatriots, different than my friends who accompany me in my gatherings, obligations and important appointments.
So, the proper way to collectively refer to me when I am around women is arbitrarily, “ladies and Daniel,” and you must increase the volume of your voice when you realize that I was a forgotten attaché, so that “Daniel” is bellowed throughout the area, notifying people in the vicinity that there are ladies, and there is Daniel.
For some reason, the useful “you all” – the origin of the convenient and nearly ubiquitous “y’all” – is lost from modern speech. Specificity is required in this moment, as the topic merits the living conditions of around 50% of the human population. The idea that you can draw common traits between that large of a group can seem as ridiculous as this specificity, wherein nothing is clear about an awkward release of energy: the “and” and the humorous moment where the speaker feels it is necessary distinguish me from the women in the room.
International Women’s Day, which was on Tuesday, March 8, feels like that: this sort-of contrived day we choose to “celebrate” women by reading an article, at most sending a Facebook post to someone else on women’s rights in a foreign country about, perhaps, how it could be comparatively better, or maybe instead the advertisement of progress. “And it’s International Women’s Day ... ”
On Mother’s Day, you buy flowers, a card, a special gift catered to the person’s interests and hobbies. Father’s Day, another Sunday where gifts are exchanged, a familial gathering takes place, at least for most or those of us who are lucky enough to have families, fathers or mothers. St. Patrick’s Day, coming up, is for the celebration of the Irish. There’s a day allotted for almost everything, and that tends to dilute the meaning of them. Even though you might be motivated by education to spread awareness about women’s issues in other places, there’s an unspoken line where that ends.
If education was enough to revolutionize the way that human beings navigate their social and political ascriptions, then we’d already be enlightened. If education instilled in us from an early age the tools to understand the psychological function of gender and the myriad of influences and histories of human beings working, courting and living in cooperative society, then we could be conscious of how to be fairer. And I think the step toward being better is sincerity.
What if we had the day off for Women’s Day? If there weren’t one thousand things to read, watch and consume about International Women’s Day, but instead time was spent preparing a gift, an outing or time with your loved ones to recognize their contribution. Not what they have done in comparison to others, where they have come from and the progress to be made or already had, but a holiday, because that’s usually a good way to show your thanks for those who work hard.
